It strikes me that in the same day (albeit one filled with hiring articles) we get an article about the success of Greyston Bakery, which will literally hire anyone and train and support them as much as needed to be successful—and this, which is along similar lines but is about software development, which, obviously, requires special individual aptitude that only a chosen few can succeed at, and must be protected from the pretenders to the throne. /s
Somehow, it feels warm and fuzzy to support the social justice of the little bakery that could, but when it comes to our own companies, our true colors shine.
Continue to take the systematic approach. It is still the best way. Of course, of course you should hire as effectively as possible, and try to have a baseline of aptitude, but there are always going to be outliers and bad fits. It's far more effective to optimize your system for the success of all employees than to focus on weeding out the 'bad ones.' Sure, there will be people that won't fit your system, but they made it through the hiring process for some reason—figure out their true aptitude and transfer them to something they'll be effective at.
The article may be wrong about the existence of fakes and bad programmers—anyone who has filed through a stack of resumes knows that—but it's right on the unreasonableness of the fear and the weight we give it.
I say it all the time to our CEO: if hiring is really a huge problem we want to focus on, how did we get all these great people? Hm.
And if hiring is really the solution to all our problems, then, well, what do we do with all these idiots standing around here?
Ha. That really is the question. The real problem is organizational and systematic. Stop worrying so much about hiring, optimize your process and be done with it, and focus on what happens afterward instead.
Somehow, it feels warm and fuzzy to support the social justice of the little bakery that could, but when it comes to our own companies, our true colors shine.
Continue to take the systematic approach. It is still the best way. Of course, of course you should hire as effectively as possible, and try to have a baseline of aptitude, but there are always going to be outliers and bad fits. It's far more effective to optimize your system for the success of all employees than to focus on weeding out the 'bad ones.' Sure, there will be people that won't fit your system, but they made it through the hiring process for some reason—figure out their true aptitude and transfer them to something they'll be effective at.
The article may be wrong about the existence of fakes and bad programmers—anyone who has filed through a stack of resumes knows that—but it's right on the unreasonableness of the fear and the weight we give it.
I say it all the time to our CEO: if hiring is really a huge problem we want to focus on, how did we get all these great people? Hm.
And if hiring is really the solution to all our problems, then, well, what do we do with all these idiots standing around here?
Ha. That really is the question. The real problem is organizational and systematic. Stop worrying so much about hiring, optimize your process and be done with it, and focus on what happens afterward instead.